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Margie Weiss has been in the fitness industry all of her life, having been a national gymnast as a child, and mother/trainer to three international athletes. Owner-coach of MG Gymnastics, her team produced international stars for 15 years. Former owner of 2 Gold's Gym franchises, Margie is also a certified personal trainer, specializing in youth sports conditioning. She has trained international athletes, including her children. Her son, Michael, is a 2-time US Olympic figure skater and 3-time US National Champion. Currently, she is GGX (Group exercise director & instructor) for 3 Gold's Gyms, where one of her programs boasts 500 classes per month; she supervises 175 instructors. Having published many articles in the fitness field, she enjoys seeing progress in each of her participants. But the things that makes her most proud of the lives she has affected are her 5 grandchildren, all of whom live very close. Seeing their smiles makes every day worth smiling about!

Ab Exercise - Core Streching

Personal trainer Margie Weiss demonstrates how to do the core stretching ab exercise.

Margie Weiss: My name is Margie; this is the stretching portion of Simply Abs.

At the end of any workout you want to make sure that you stretch out the muscles that you have just worked. If you have done exercises to both sides which you should be doing on any exercise to keep balance, you are going to want to stretch to either sides. So, we are going to straighten Jeremys legs out and take one arm over head, we are just going to flip her on to her stomach, making sure that she is still on the mat.

You are going to put either your elbows on the ground, or your hands on the ground depending on your lower back and you are going to arch up, look to the ceiling, try to release the hip muscles, relax at the waist and then as you breathe in you are going to feel the stretch through the core then breathe out.

Now, if she were a beginner she would be on her elbows. Once we get up to the top we can also bend one arm, look around that corner and take this opposite shoulder lifted up towards your ear as you twist, that way you are not only feeling the stretch here you are also feeling in the foreside. Coming back to the center, you can do the same thing to the other side. So, she looks around, lifts the shoulder of the foreside, feel the stretch on both sides, come right back to center. Then she is going to just lift her hips off the ground on the hands or on the elbows, and she is going to arch her back and then she is going to round her back hard pressing it upwards like a cat stretch. This is the one that you want to really feel because you want to feel the stretch through the lower abs and the lower back, rounding the back let it relax just a bit and bring it up.

One more time out, and come up, and remember if you have done abs for half hour you have been on the ground for half hour. So, you want to stand up slowly. So, you are going to walk your hands in towards your knees, sit back, be sure it doesnt hurt your knees, slowly come up, if you need to support your hands on your knees, round your back, the head will be the last thing to come up.

We are going to stretch the neck. So, let her relax to one side because even though we dont want to use the neck in an abs class we generally do. Let the head come forward with the back nice and straight. Same thing to the other side, relaxing the opposite shoulder with a head drape, coming back to the center, if you need a little bit more you can always put your hand to your head and gently stretch it to the side. Same thing to the other side, breathe out and release it, to the center gentle pressure only, chin does go in now, but the back is strong, gentle pressure next, lifting up bringing the hand down, you may want to take the shoulders and roll them around a little bit, taking them backwards also taking them forwards, and then usually at the end of an abs class you can take your hands up, why? because you give yourself a hand for doing abs.